How to Carry the Litter of Hard Feelings to the Green Cans
In our tiny town in the heart of the Smoky Mountains, we can boast about something unusual: we have the neatest (as in tidiest) green can operation you will find. You can empty your trash 24/7, always finding a well-swept, well-lighted concrete slab with more than a dozen frequently-emptied dumpsters, simply known to us as the green cans.
So back to the hard feelings--is there someone in your life that you forgive easily, virtually forgetting their offenses, while there is another toward whom you practice near-unforgiveness, allowing the wounds of resentment, anger, jealousy and misplaced competition to run deeper and stay longer? Why is that?
If that is true, then your heart is a little like the green can operation--you look good at practicing forgiveness, your heart is for the most part well-swept and well-lighted, and to look at you we would say yes, a kind and forgiving person is she/he.
But did I forget to say that no matter how well-manicured our green can operation works in our small town, every one of those dumpsters is full of...garbage--smelly--and in need of permanent disposal?
So like it or not, toward that person whom you harbor near-unforgiveness, you are protecting a green can of the heart, smelly to God and dangerous to your emotional and physical health.
Our green cans are not emptied easily--it takes a large, specially-designed dumpster truck to haul each can high into the air and target the contents into the bed of the truck for permanent disposal.
Likewise, each green can of our heart needs the large, specially-designed power of God to empty that smelly green can into His permanent disposal location.
Are you in need of God's dumpster truck?
